Along with athletes from Uganda, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Ghana, they have until midnight on Tuesday to apply for protection visas or risk mandatory detention and deportation for overstaying their visa.

Some of the athletes turned up in Sydney seeking legal advice on how to stay in Australia.

Officials said they walked out of the athletes’ village in “three waves” in the middle of the night, and did not seem likely to return.

The Cameroon team’s press attache Simon Molombe said he had “no idea” where the athletes were heading. “They just left in the night,” he said.

“When we got up in the morning, they were not there. It’s very, very disappointing and very, very embarrassing for Cameroon.”

He told news.com.au he “doesn’t think they’ll come back”.

The Daily Telegraph revealed exclusively that some of the missing athletes have contacted the Refugee Advice and Casework Service (RACS) in Randwick, Sydney to organise applications for protection visas.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has warned the athletes to make contact with authorities as soon as possible.

“As I’ve said in relation to people who have travelled to Australia on visas associated with the Commonwealth Games, people have conditions of the visas to meet,” he said on Tuesday.

“If they breach the conditions, they’re subject to enforcement action, and I would say to anyone that is outside of the conditions of their visa … to make contact with the Border Force so arrangements can be made for that person to be returned to their country of origin.

“If people have claims to make, or they have submissions to put to the department, then we’ll consider all of that in due course.

“But if people have breached their visa conditions, like anyone else, they’re expected to operate within the law, and enforcement action will take place to identify those people and to deport them if they don’t self-declare.”